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Challenge Day 7: Weekend Wrap-Up

Welcome back to the New Year Cleaning Challenge! Today, we're wrapping up Preview Week and preparing to launch the Challenge in earnest next with, with the entryway or foyer.

It's "tidy up loose ends" sort of day, one where I'll sit and do one last holiday assignment: a post-season debriefing.

You'll hear a lot about debriefing over at sister site Organized Christmas. Remembering the season's high points--and the places where it fell flat--will guide me to a more centered celebration next year.

Today's Assignment:Celebrate Your Progress

Writing to you from back here behind the screen, I can hear what you may be thinking: "Oh no! Only one week, and I'm already behind!"

Sound familiar? Signing on to a get-organized plan like the New Year Cleaning Challenge is a great way to springboard personal change ... if you can avoid some common pitfalls. Chief among these: viewing the Challenge as a competition or a race. One with winners, losers, and a ticking stopwatch.

For many of us, the week's end brings a sinking feeling. Rather than focusing on the progress we've made, we zero in on our perceived shortfalls. We tell ourselves that we didn't "finish". We didn't achieve as much as others. We're already "behind".

Hogwash! Repeat after me: "There is No Such Thing as 'Behind'!"

The New Year Cleaning Challenge is meant to be a guideline, not a board game. Every step forward is, well, a step forward!

To keep motivation flowing, refocus your vision. Taking stock of what you've achieved this week, not on what you've "failed" to do, is the key to making steady, forward progress.

Keep that viewpoint in mind, as we work together toward a clean and organized home, each one at his or her own pace!